


Self Recognition Through the Other

by lapsi



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: First Kiss, Love/Hate, M/M, Restraints, Spoilers Campaign 2 Episode 97
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:34:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22952650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapsi/pseuds/lapsi
Summary: Post-episode 97.Essek has never felt guilt about any of his unspeakable betrayals. Not for selling out his country, his kin, the Luxon itself. Now, after misleading a handful of foreign adventurers (and in particular, one secretive human wizard), guilt has become an intimate acquaintance.
Relationships: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 24
Kudos: 297





	Self Recognition Through the Other

Essek’s muscles are still aching from whatever paralytic agent that ended up in his body. His hands, bound before him deliberately tight enough to impinge his somatic spellwork, are tingling about the fingertips. Maybe a little too tight. It really is the least of what he deserves.   
  
Most noticeable still is the collar. (“Just so, if you like, wake up in the night and freak out! And try to teleport away to the other side of the continent or something. You can’t. You know?” Jester had cajoled.) Trust, kindness, forgiveness, but with understandable limitations. Essek didn’t feel as if he could say no-- and then it was on, and he unequivocally could not. Whatever arcane handiwork is at play here is powerful, and the mechanics seem complex and beyond his realm of expertise. He’d guess Widogast didn’t make it. Doesn’t seem his style. Then again, it was the young wizard who fastened the thing around his neck.   
  
Caleb Widogast is also the one guarding him, currently. Shifts to watch the traitor have been running throughout the night. Essek has been silent, by design. Hunched into himself, deep in the hypothetical worlds of his painful and fleeting futures. It becomes more complicated when these individuals alleging themselves as ‘friends’ enter into the equation. Especially Widogast. The reheaded wizard is turned away over a page of study, still resplendent in his evening finery. Some crumples setting in on the dark sleeves. His long hair is swept backwards into a simple, utilitarian bun. It was loose, this evening. The human seems to be on edge, anticipating trouble but also making every attempt to distract himself.   
  
Caleb had seemed to present the biggest risk within the Mighty Nein, and was therefore the individual requiring the most attention. He was the one who held aloft the very beacon that Essek had secreted out of Kryn hands. That heartfelt, desperate plea-- a good speaker, perhaps a good liar. Essek had spent the night after their first study session analysing the spell casting displays he’d seen, calculating spell levels, extrapolating hitherto unshown abilities and future capabilities. The clever, foreign wizard could be killed in a one-on-one fight. That much was obvious. Throw in a few of his more physically gifted friends, and Essek was certain the ruthless almost-Vollstrecker would know how to exploit the number advantage.   
  
Jester Lavorre should have probably received the same treatment, Essek thinks in retrospect. Divine power should not be underestimated in the hands of such an unpredictable, self-directed individual.   
  
If he’d figured them out sooner, and acted upon his concerns about their whimsical and yet fruitful investigative capacities, he could have cleverly arranged for them to be revealed as traitors to the Dynasty and summarily executed. Perhaps he could have sent them to their deaths at the hands of Ikithon or another unsavoury Cerberus affiliate. Those were once options to him, before this barbed affection sunk into him too deep to be wrestled free. No bloody clawing at his own chest will dislodge the guilt, should he lead these young adventurers to their death.   
  
Doing that to Caleb, now, seems nigh unthinkable.   
  
Essek realizes he’s staring at Caleb the same moment he realizes Caleb is staring back.  
  
The human’s eyes are shadowed and perpetually guarded; perhaps that is kindness, perhaps it is rekindled rage. Caleb unfurls from the far wall of the perceptibly bobbing ship, like a spectre reuniting with body. Caleb’s eyes catch the meagre lantern light and look brightly afire.  “Are you comfortable? Do you need food, water?”   
  
Essek shrugs. Then, deigning the gesture more indifferent than he should appear, he forces a thin-lipped smile up.   
  
The dark brows draw together into a deep furrow of freckled skin. Caleb squats to his level. “They’ll trust you again. Give them time.”   
  
Essek’s head tilts at the language used.    
  
Caleb seems to either misunderstand or ignore the curiosity. The wizard’s nails are scratching rhythmically along his inner arm. A tic he does not seem to notice himself descending into.   
  
Essek frowns, raising hands best he can pointedly towards his collar; bound and clasped, this could almost be prayer.   
  
“They would not be very happy with me if I were to take that off you,” Caleb says in dismal speculation, and then, “Not that I could. We need No--Veth for that.” He retraces his steps, picking up a quill and parchment (cheap, non-magical supplies, that has Essek immediately curious about what communique Caleb was producing) and setting them down. He doesn’t issue any threats as he unties Essek’s hands; there is enough implicit understanding of the delicacy of Essek’s standing.   
  
Essek slides his fingers across the faint ligature marks formed. Gently, he massages the sensation of restraint away from himself. Only then does he reach for the writing equipment.   
  
‘You say I can earn their trust back. What about your own?’ he writes.   
  
Caleb laughs at that-- a deep, joyless scoff. “I said I see myself in you. Do I strike you as someone who trusts themself, Thelyss? ...so, why would I ever trust you again?” There’s a warm enough defeat to the words. Recognition, perhaps.   
  
Essek frowns, setting quill to page once more. ‘Why the speech, then? Why not kill me?’ His writing is usually ordered, well-formed. Here, now, it sprawls and scratches across the page in furtive escape.   
  
“Believe me, I thought-- I thought very hard about killing you. I’m sure you can imagine the risk you pose to me and mine,” Caleb murmurs. He’s close, now. The clean-shaven cheeks of the evening’s festivities are beginning to cede to orange stubble. Beneath, there’s the indent of clenched jaw muscles. His glinting teeth show when he talks-- repressed, clever, angry animalism. “The man I was, before these people-- it wouldn’t have been a question about what to do with you. You know yourself, don’t you? You must have thought about killing me. About killing  _ us _ .”   
  
The hunched drow slowly nods.  
  
Caleb's hand has strayed to his shoulder again.  “I don’t want to kill you, Essek. I don’t want you dead, but I especially do not want to kill you. Do you understand?”   
  
Essek doesn’t reach to write a reply. He inclines his head.   
  
“It is very easy, and very ugly, to love without trust,” Caleb murmurs. He is still staring at his own hand, at the contact between them.   
  
Essek tries to swallow past the unforgiving restriction of arcane metalwork. Then, in a panicked rush, he leans in.   
  
Caleb draws back. “No. I don’t think--” he starts, rough and abrupt.   
  
Essek tries again.   
  
Caleb emits a low-throated growl of frustration. He surges forward. Now, he has a handful of very short hair, pulling Essek in and up to meet his lips. A hundred years-- lovers for political ends and the illusion of normalcy and investment in his community-- a hundred years and not one wanted kiss. Now it comes: burning like something red hot, sudden and thoughtless and ill-omened. Widogast’s teeth take to his lower lip unkindly.   
  
“You broke my trust, Essek. You broke the world to achieve your own ends,” Caleb says, breaking from the biting, wrathful kiss. “Is it worth it, to you? To fix it? Because I don’t believe you’re going to do it for selfless reasons.”   
  
_ This is worth it, _ Essek thinks. He struggles to draw breath, nodding too frantically for his own liking.   
  
Caleb glowers down, imperious and heartless and well-trained. The high neck of his black formal attire could well be an interrogator’s uniform. Then the shoulders soften, hunch inward. He retreats a handful of inches back onto his haunches, pulling his hands back into himself. “Good, good,” he whispers, the back of his hand passing his own lips. “That’s a good place to start.”


End file.
